Determining fraudulent indications of advertisement interaction based on identity

ABSTRACT

An ad publisher provides an online system with user identifying information of users who interacted with an advertisement presented by the ad publisher and indications of interactions with the advertisement. A landing page is associated with the advertisement, and the advertiser provides the online system with user identifiers of users who interacted with the advertisement and requested the landing page. The online system determines whether the ad publisher fraudulently identifies interactions with the advertisement by comparing the user identifying information received from the ad publisher with the user identifiers received from the advertiser.

BACKGROUND

This disclosure relates generally to online advertising, and morespecifically to identifying advertisement (“ad”) publishers fraudulentlyidentifying user interactions with advertisements.

An ad publisher provides advertisements and content to users. Typically,an ad publisher receives compensation from an advertiser or other entityfor presenting advertisements associated with the advertisement. Usersof client devices may view and interact with advertisements presented byan ad publisher via the client devices. Often, the amount ofcompensation received by an ad publisher is dependent upon the number ofinteractions by client device users with advertisements presented by thead publisher.

However, ad publishers typically provide information identifying thenumber of interactions with presented advertisements. Motivated bygenerating higher revenues, an ad publisher may identify moreinteractions with advertisements to an advertiser or other entityproviding compensation than number of interactions with advertisementsperformed by actual users. This decreases revenue to advertisers fromadvertisements presented via ad publishers.

SUMMARY

An online system provides advertisements received from one or moreadvertisers to an advertisement (“ad”) publishing system, which presentsadvertisements to users of client devices along with additional content.The online system provides an advertisement to an ad publisher, whichcombines the advertisement with additional content and communicates theadvertisement and additional content to one or more client devices forpresentation. Each advertisement includes a link to a landing page thatincludes content presented to a user when the user interacts with theadvertisement by selecting the link. The landing page typically containscontent related to the advertiser and/or the product or serviceassociated with the advertisement. Client devices communicate useridentifying information of the users who interacted with advertisements(e.g., by following the link to the landing page) and optionallyadditional indications of user interactions (e.g., a purchase) to the adpublisher. The ad publisher then communicates the user identifyinginformation and any additional indications of user interactions to theonline system. Additionally, the advertiser communicates useridentifiers associated with users who interacted with the advertisementand who accessed the landing page to the online system.

To prevent an ad publisher from providing fraudulent or otherwiseincorrect information to the online system about users who interactedwith advertisements, the online system determines a value or metric thatis indicative of whether the ad publisher has accurately reported theuser interactions. In one embodiment, this value is based on the useridentifying information provided by the ad publisher and the useridentifiers provided by the advertiser. For example, the online systemdetermines the value as a ratio of a number of users from the useridentifying information from the ad publisher that do not match a useridentifier received from the advertiser to a total number ofinteractions with advertisements indicated by the ad publisher. If thevalue exceeds a threshold, the online system identifies the ad publisherproviding fraudulent information identifying interactions withadvertisements.

In some embodiments, if an ad publisher is identified as providingfraudulent information identifying interactions with advertisements, theonline system may apply a fraud protection process based on thefraudulent information. For example, the online system blacklists the adpublisher to prevent the ad publisher from subsequently presentingadvertisements from the online system. As another example, the onlinesystem may also reduce or forego payment to the ad publisher for theinteractions that the ad publisher fraudulently identified.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a high level block diagram of a system environment, inaccordance with an embodiment.

FIG. 2 is an example block diagram of an architecture of the onlinesystem, in accordance with an embodiment.

FIG. 3 is an interaction diagram of a method for identifying adpublishers providing fraudulent information describing interactions withadvertisements, in accordance with an embodiment.

The figures depict various embodiments for purposes of illustrationonly. One skilled in the art will readily recognize from the followingdiscussion that alternative embodiments of the structures and methodsillustrated herein may be employed without departing from the principlesdescribed herein.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION System Architecture

FIG. 1 is a high level block diagram of a system environment 100. Thesystem environment 100 shown by FIG. 1 comprises one or more clientdevices 110, a network 120, an advertiser 130, one or more advertisement(“ad”) publishers 140, and an online system 150. In alternativeconfigurations, different and/or additional components may be includedin the system environment 100.

The client devices 110 are one or more computing devices capable ofreceiving user input as well as transmitting and/or receiving data viathe network 120. In one embodiment, a client device 110 is aconventional computer system, such as a desktop or laptop computer.Alternatively, a client device 110 may be a device having computerfunctionality, such as a personal digital assistant (PDA), a mobiletelephone, a smartphone or another suitable device. A client device 110is configured to communicate via the network 120. In one embodiment, aclient device 110 executes an application allowing a user of the clientdevice 110 to interact with the online system 150. For example, a clientdevice 110 executes a browser application to enable interaction betweenthe client device 110 and the social networking system 150 via thenetwork 120. In another embodiment, a client device 110 interacts withthe online system 150 through an application programming interface (API)running on a native operating system of the client device 110, such asIOS® or ANDROID™.

The client devices 110 are configured to communicate via the network120, which may comprise any combination of local area and/or wide areanetworks, using both wired and/or wireless communication systems. In oneembodiment, the network 120 uses standard communications technologiesand/or protocols. For example, the network 120 includes communicationlinks using technologies such as Ethernet, 802.11, worldwideinteroperability for microwave access (WiMAX), 3G, 4G, code divisionmultiple access (CDMA), digital subscriber line (DSL), etc. Examples ofnetworking protocols used for communicating via the network 120 includemultiprotocol label switching (MPLS), transmission controlprotocol/Internet protocol (TCP/IP), hypertext transport protocol(HTTP), simple mail transfer protocol (SMTP), and file transfer protocol(FTP). Data exchanged over the network 120 may be represented using anysuitable format, such as hypertext markup language (HTML) or extensiblemarkup language (XML). In some embodiments, all or some of thecommunication links of the network 120 may be encrypted using anysuitable technique or techniques.

An advertiser 130 creates advertising content for presentation to usersof client devices 110. For example, the advertiser 130 generates variousadvertisements describing products or services. An advertisement may beassociated with a landing page specifying content presented to a userwhen the user interacts with the advertisement. For example, anadvertisement is associated with a network address from which thelanding page is retrieved and presented to a user when the userinteracts with the advertisement. The landing mage may be a web page, anapplication installation interface, or any other suitable content. Forexample, the landing page is a web page including other content providedby the advertiser 130. In some embodiments, the advertiser 130communicates advertisements to the online system 150, which selects oneor more advertisements for communication to a client device 110, asfurther described below in conjunction with FIG. 2.

An ad publisher 140 provides one or more advertising spaces (ad spaces)for presenting advertisements via a client device 110. An ad spacespecifies a location in a user interface in which an advertisement ispresented to a user. For example, the ad publisher 140 includes dataidentifying one or more locations in the user interface and receives anadvertisement for presentation in a location. In one embodiment, the adpublisher 140 is a mobile ad publisher, such as a mobile application,and the user interface is on a mobile device, such as the user interfaceof a mobile application. Additionally, the ad publisher 140 may presentother content along with one or more of the advertisements, allowing thead publisher 140 to combine content with one or more advertisements forpresentation via a client device 110.

The online system 150 receives one or more advertisements from anadvertiser 130. In an embodiment, an advertiser 130 communicates one ormore advertisements to the online system 150, which identifies anadvertisement for communication to an ad publisher 140 for presentationvia a client device 110. In some embodiments, the online system 150receives a request for an advertisement from an ad publisher 140 thatincludes information describing characteristics of a user from the adpublisher 140; based on the characteristics of the user, the onlinesystem 150 selects an advertisement and communicates the selectedadvertisement to the ad publisher 140 for presentation to the user.

Additionally, the online system 150 manages payment to the ad publisher140 by an advertiser 130. For example, the advertiser 130 providescompensation to the ad publisher 140 when an advertisement from theadvertiser 130 is presented by the ad publisher 140 or when a userinteracts with an advertisement from the advertiser 130 that waspresented by the ad publisher 140. The online system 150 may communicateinformation to the advertiser 130 based on information received from thead publisher 140 specifying an amount of compensation for the advertiser130 to provide to the ad publisher 140 for presenting advertisementsfrom the advertiser 130. While FIG. 1 shows an embodiment where theonline system 150 is a single entity, in other embodiments the onlinesystem 150 may be implemented using a variety of architectures andconfigurations having multiple components, modules, and/or servers incommunication. For example, the online system 150 may be implemented asa system including one or more of: ad-delivering servers, demand sideplatforms (DSPs), ad networks (horizontal and vertical), analyticplatforms, data management platforms, data aggregators, targeted andbehavioral advertising platforms, and/or campaign management systems.

FIG. 2 is an example block diagram of an architecture of the onlinesystem 150. The online system 150 shown in FIG. 2 includes a userprofile store 205, an ad campaign store 210, an advertisement (“ad”)publisher store 215, an ad serving module 220, an ad interaction store225 and a fraud detection module 230. In other embodiments, the onlinesystem 150 may include additional, fewer, or different components forvarious applications. Conventional components such as networkinterfaces, security functions, load balancers, failover servers,management and network operations consoles, and the like are not shownso as to not obscure the details of the system architecture. In someembodiments, the online system 150 is a social networking systemincluding information describing various users, connections betweenusers, and content for presentation to users of the social networkingsystem.

Each user of the online system 150 is associated with a user profile,which is stored in the user profile store 205. A user profile includesdeclarative information about the user that was explicitly shared by theuser and may also include profile information inferred by the onlinesystem 150. In one embodiment, a user profile includes multiple datafields, each describing one or more attributes of the corresponding userof the online system 150. Examples of information stored in a userprofile include biographic, demographic, and other types of descriptiveinformation, such as work experience, educational history, gender,hobbies or preferences, location and the like. A user profile may alsostore other information provided by the user, for example, images orvideos. Additionally, if the online system 150 is a social networkingsystem, a user profile may include information describing connections orrelationships between a user and additional social networking systemusers. In certain embodiments, images of users may be tagged withidentification information of users of the online system 150 displayedin an image. A user profile also includes information uniquelyidentifying the user associated with the user profile. The identifyinginformation may be a user identifier, an email address, a phone number,a cookie identifier, or a hash of any of those to protect privacy.

The ad campaign store 210 stores information associated with one or moreadvertisement (“ad”) campaigns provided by an advertiser 130.Information associated with an ad campaign includes one or more adsincluded in the ad campaign. Each advertisement specifies content, whichis text, image, audio, video, or any other suitable data presented to auser. In various embodiments, an advertisement is associated with anetwork address specifying a landing page (e.g., a web page, anapplication installation interface), which is presented to a user whenthe user interacts with the advertisement.

Information associated with an ad campaign may also include one or morecampaign parameters influencing the presentation of ads associated withthe ad campaign to users. Example campaign parameters specified by an adcampaign include one or more objectives of the ad campaign, an adcampaign duration, an ad campaign budget, a bid amount specifying amaximum amount of compensation for presentation or for interaction withan advertisement associated with the ad campaign, and targetingcriteria. An objective associated with an ad campaign specifies one ormore goals of an advertiser 130 for presentation of advertisementsassociated with the ad campaign. For example, an objective specifies atotal number times advertisements in the ad campaign are presented tousers (i.e., a total number of impressions of advertisements in the adcampaign), specifies a total number of unique users to be presented withat least one advertisement associated with the ad campaign, a totalnumber of users accessing a landing page associated with one or moreadvertisements associated with the ad campaign, a total number of usersperforming a specified type of interaction with one or moreadvertisements associated with the ad campaign, or any other suitablecriteria.

In addition, a duration associated with the ad campaign specifies a timeinterval during which ads associated with the ad campaign are presentedto users. An ad campaign budget specifies a total amount of compensationthat the advertiser 130 has agreed to provide the online system 150and/or ad publishers 140 in connection with the ad campaign. A bidamount is associated with one or more advertisements specifies themaximum amount of compensation the advertiser 130 will provide to theonline system 150 and/or to an ad publisher 140 if an advertisement ispresented to a user or if a user interacts with an advertisementpresented to the user. Targeting criteria specifies one or morecharacteristics of users eligible to be presented with one or moreadvertisements associated with an advertising campaign; targetingcriteria may be associated with individual advertisements or associatedwith an advertising campaign in its entirety. Hence, targeting criteriaallow an advertiser to identify users having specific characteristics tobe presented with advertisements.

The ad publisher store 215 stores publisher profiles associated withdifferent ad publishers 140. A publisher profile associated with an adpublisher 140 includes information identifying the ad publisher 140 andone or more metrics describing prior interactions between the adpublisher 140 and the online system 150. Examples of metrics stored in apublisher profile associated with an ad publisher 140 include a totalnumber of times the online system 150 has communicated advertisements tothe ad publisher 140 to be presented and a rate of conversions fromadvertisements presented via the ad publisher 140 (i.e., a rate at whichone or more types of actions occur when advertisements are presented viathe ad publisher 140).

A publisher profile associated with an ad publisher 140 also indicateswhether the ad publisher 140 has previously been identified as providingfraudulent information to the online system 150 describing userinteractions with advertisements presented using the ad publisher 140.Alternatively, the ad publisher store 215 includes a blacklist includingad publishers 140 that have provided fraudulent information describinguser interactions with advertisements presented by the ad publishers140. An example of fraudulent information describing user interactionswith advertisements form an ad publisher 140 is information from the adpublisher indicating 1,000 interactions with an advertisement when only600 interactions occurred. Identification of fraudulent informationdescribing user interactions form an ad publisher is further describedbelow in conjunction with FIG. 3.

The ad serving module 220 selects from one or more ad campaigns includedin the ad campaign store 210 an advertisement for presentation by an adpublisher 140. When the online system 150 receives a request for anadvertisement from an ad publisher 140, the ad serving module 220selects an advertisement from the ad campaign store 210 and communicatesthe selected advertisement to the ad publisher 140. The ad servingmodule 220 may use information in the request from the ad publisher 140to select an advertisement. After receiving a request for anadvertisement from an ad publisher 140, the ad serving module 220determines whether the ad publisher 140 previously provided fraudulentinformation describing user interactions with advertisements based oninformation in the ad publisher store 215. In one embodiment, the adserving module 220 does not select an advertisement for communication toan ad publisher 140 identified as previously providing fraudulentinformation describing user interactions with advertisements. If the adpublisher 140 from which a request for an advertisement was received isnot identified as an ad publisher 140 from which fraudulent informationdescribing user interactions was received, the ad serving module 220determines whether an ad included in one or more ad campaigns stored inthe ad campaign store 210 is suitable for presentation by the adpublisher 140.

To identify an advertisement for presentation by an ad publisher 140,the ad serving module 220 compares campaign parameters associated withone or more ad campaigns and information associated with advertisementsin ad campaigns with information in the request for an advertisementreceived from the ad publisher 140. For example, the request includes aminimum amount of compensation to the ad publisher 140 for presenting anadvertisement, and the ad serving module 220 identifies advertisementsfrom one or more ad campaigns associated with bid amounts equaling orexceeding the minimum amount of compensation to the ad publisher. Asanother example, the ad serving module 220 identifies one or moreadvertisements having at least a threshold number of targeting criteriasatisfied by characteristics of a user to whom the ad will be presentedincluded in the request from the ad publisher 140. In one embodiment,the ad serving module 220 ranks identified advertisements based at leastin part on their bid amounts and selects an advertisement to communicateto the ad publisher based at least in part on the ranking.

After selecting an advertisement, the ad serving module 220 communicatesthe selected advertisement to the ad publisher 140. In some embodiments,the ad serving module 220 communicates a bid amount associated with theselected advertisement to the ad publisher 140, which may use the bidamount along with bid amounts associated with advertisements from otheronline systems 150 to identify an advertisement for presentation.Alternatively, the ad serving module 220 communicates the bid amountassociated with the selected advertisement, and the ad publisher 140selects a bid amount received from an online system 150 then requests anadvertisement from an online system 150 that provided the selected bidamount.

An ad publisher 140 communicates information describing userinteractions with advertisements presented by the ad publisher 140 tothe online system 150, which stores the information along with an adpublisher 140 identifier in the ad interaction store 225. Examples ofuser interactions with an advertisement include clicking or otherwiseaccessing the advertisement, purchasing a product or service associatedwith the advertisement, installing an application associated with theadvertisement, or performing any other suitable interaction. In variousembodiments, the ad publisher 140 communicates information identifyingusers that interacted with an advertisement, such as a user identifieror a device identifier associated with a client device 110 used tointeract with the advertisement, along with information describing theinteraction. An advertiser 130 also communicates information identifyingusers who interacted with an advertisement and also accessed contentprovided by the advertiser to the online system 150. The identifyinginformation may be a user identifier, an email address, a phone number,a cookie identifier, or a hash of any of those. For example, theadvertiser 130 communicates user identifiers or device identifiersassociated with interacted with users that interacted with anadvertisement and accessed a landing page associated with theadvertisement and provided by the advertiser 130. The online system 150also stores the information received from the advertiser 130 and anidentifier associated with the advertiser 130 in the ad interactionstore 225.

The fraud detection module 230 determines whether an ad publisher 140has provided fraudulent information describing user interactions withadvertisements to the online system 150 by comparing informationidentifying users received from the ad publisher 150 with informationidentifying users received from one or more advertisers 130. Forexample, the fraud detection module 230 compares user identifiersreceived from an ad publisher 140 describing users who interacted withan advertisement to user identifying information received from anadvertiser 130 describing users who interacted with an advertisement andaccessed a landing page or other content provided by the advertiser 130.In one embodiment, the fraud detection module determines a ratio of anumber of user identifiers received from the ad publisher 140 that donot match user identifying information received from the advertiser 130to a number of user identifiers received from the ad publisher 140 thatmatch user identifying information received from the advertiser. If theratio has at least a threshold value, the fraud detection module 230determines that the ad publisher 140 has provided fraudulent informationdescribing interactions with the advertisement. In some embodiments, afraud protection process may be performed when an ad publisher 140 isdetermined to have provided fraudulent information to determine remedialmeasures to perform. Examples of remedial measures include blacklistingan ad publisher 140 identified as providing fraudulent informationdescribing user interactions or reducing the amount of compensationprovided to an ad publisher identified as providing fraudulentinformation describing user interactions. Identification of adpublishers 140 providing fraudulent information describing userinteractions is further described below in conjunction with FIG. 3.

Detecting Ad Publishers Providing Fraudulent Information

FIG. 3 is an interaction diagram of a method for identifying an adpublisher 140 providing fraudulent information describing userinteractions with advertisements. In various embodiments, the method mayinclude different and/or additional steps than those described inconjunction with FIG. 3. Additionally, in some embodiments, the methodmay perform certain steps in a different order than shown in FIG. 3.

The online system 150 provides 302 an ad to an ad publisher 140 forpresentation to users of one or more client devices 110 by the adpublisher 140. As discussed above in conjunction with FIG. 2, the adpublisher 140 communicates a request for an advertisement to present tothe online system 150. If the online system 150 has not previouslyidentified the ad publisher as providing fraudulent informationdescribing user interactions with advertisements, the online system 150selects an advertisement and provides 302 the selected advertisement tothe ad publisher 140 via the network 120. The advertisement provided bythe online system 150 includes a network address of a landing pageassociated with an advertiser 130. For example, the advertisementincludes a link to the landing page. When a user interacts with theadvertiser 130, the landing page is retrieved and presented to the user.A landing page may be a web page provided and/or maintained by any oneof the online system 150, the advertiser 130 or the ad publisher 140.Alternatively, the landing page may be an installation interface for anapplication or the application itself. Such an application may beprovided and/or maintained by any one of the online system 150, theadvertiser 130 or the ad publisher 140.

After receiving the advertisement, the ad publisher 140 provides 304 theadvertisement and additional content to a client device 110 forpresentation to a user. The additional content may be generated by thead publisher 140 or received by the ad publisher 140 from an externalsource. In one embodiment, the ad publisher 140 combines the additionalcontent and the advertisement into a page or other content feed that isprovided 304 to the client device 110 for presentation to the user. Inone embodiment, the user of the client device 110 is associated with auser profile maintained by the online system 150. For example, the userassociated with the client device 110.

The client device 110 presents 306 the advertisement and the additionalcontent received from the ad publisher 140. For example, the clientdevice 110 presents 306 the advertisement and the additional content tothe user via a display device. If the user interacts with theadvertisement, the client device 110 captures 308 the interaction andtransmits 310 to the ad publisher 140 user information identifying theuser who interacted with the advertisement. The information identifyingthe user (“user identifying information”) may be a unique useridentifier associated with the user and stored on the client device 110or may be a device identifier associated with the client device 110. Inone embodiment, the ad publisher 140 includes data or instructions inthe page or content feed provided 304 to the client device 110 so theclient device 110 transmits 310 the user identifying information whenthe user interacts with the advertisement via the client device 110. Insome embodiments, the ad publisher 140 uses a software development kit(SDK) provided by the online system 150 that executes on the clientdevice 110. The SDK transmits 310 the user identifying information whenan interaction with the advertisement is captured 308 by the clientdevice 110. The client device 110 may optionally transmit informationidentifying the advertisement to the ad publisher 140 along with theuser identifying information, allowing the ad publisher 140 to identifyadvertisement with which the user interacted.

Additionally, the client device 110 requests 312 the landing pageassociated with the advertisement when the interaction with theadvertisement is captured 308. For example, the client device 110identifies a network address associated with the advertisement andrequests 312 content from a source specified by the network address. Theclient device 110 presents the landing page received from the advertiser130 to the user. In some embodiments, the network address associatedwith the advertisement identifies an entity other than the advertiser130, so the landing page is requested from the identified entity ratherthan from the advertiser 130.

The ad publisher 140 transmits 314 the user identifying information ofthe user who interacted with the advertisement via the client device 110to the online system 150. For example, the ad publisher 140 transmits314 an indication of the interaction captured 308 by the client device110 and the user identifying information received from the client device110 to the online system 150. In some embodiments, the ad publisher 140transmits 314 information identifying an interaction with theadvertisement that was received via the client device 110 withoutproviding user identifying information. The ad publisher 140 may use asoftware development kit (SDK) provided by the online system 150 thattransmits 314 the user identifying information to the online system 150.User identifying information and an indication of user interactions withthe advertisement is stored by the online system 150 along with anidentifier associated with the ad publisher 140.

Similarly, the advertiser 130 transmits 316 an identifier associatedwith the user and a notification that the client device 110 associatedwith the user requested the landing page to the online system 150, whichstores the identifier and the notification along with an identifierassociated with the advertiser 130. To transmit 316 the identifierassociated with the user (“user identifier”) and the notification, thelanding page may include a tracking mechanism associated with the onlinesystem 150 that transmits the identifier associated with the user andthe notification when the landing page is accessed by the client device110. Alternatively, the advertiser 130 transmits 316 the user identifierand the notification via a software development kit (SDK) provided bythe online system 150.

The identifier transmitted by the advertiser 130 may be a useridentifier associated with the user who interacted with theadvertisement or may be a device identifier associated with the clientdevice 110 that captured 308 the interaction with the advertisement. Inone embodiment, the request for the landing page transmitted by theclient device 110 includes the user identifier, and the advertiser 130extracts the identifier from the request and transmits 316 the extractedidentifier to the online system 150. In an alternate embodiment, theadvertiser 130 retrieves the identifier from the client device 110 thatrequested 312 the landing page.

The preceding steps may be performed for multiple advertisementsprovided by the online system 150 for presentation by the ad publisher140. For example, the preceding steps are performed for eachadvertisement provided by the online system 150 to the ad publisher 140for presentation. Because the ad publisher 140 transmits 310 useridentifying information and the indication of interaction withadvertisements provided 304 by the ad publisher 140 to the online system140, the ad publisher 140 may over report interactions with anadvertisement. By fraudulently transmitting 310 user identifyinginformation to the online system 150, the ad publisher 140 mayfraudulently increase the amount the online system 150 pays to the adpublisher 140 and/or fraudulently impact the metrics associated with thead publisher 140 by the online system 150.

To identify potentially fraudulent information from the ad publisher140, the online system 150 determines 318 a value for the ad publisher140 based on user identifying information provided by the ad publisher140 and user identifiers provided by the advertiser 130. In oneembodiment, the online system 150 determines 318 the value as a ratio ofa number of users identified from the user identifying informationprovided by the ad publisher 140 that do not match a user identifierprovided by the advertiser 130 to a number of users determined from theuser identifying information provided by the ad publisher 140. Inanother embodiment, the value is determined 318 as a ratio of a numberof users identified by the user identifying information received fromthe ad publisher 140 that do not match at user identifier from theadvertiser 130 to a total number of interactions with one or moreadvertisements provided to the online system 150 by the ad publisher140. Alternatively, if the ad publisher 140 provides informationidentifying interactions with one or more advertisements provided by thead publisher 140, the value is determined 318 by comparing the number ofinteractions identified by the ad publisher 140 with a number of useridentifiers received from the advertiser 150; for example, the value isa difference between the number of interactions identified by the adpublisher 140 with the number of user identifiers received from theadvertiser 150.

If the determined value exceeds a threshold, the online system 150identifies the user identifying information received from the adpublisher 140 as fraudulent. The threshold is configurable and mayaccount for scenarios where the ad publisher 140 may transmit 314 useridentifying information and indications of interactions but theadvertiser 130 is unable to transmit 316 a user identifier matching theuser identifying information and notification of a request for a landingpage. For example, the ad publisher 140 may transmit 314 useridentifying information and an indication of an interaction with anadvertisement while the advertiser 130 is unavailable or otherwiseunable to communicate information that prevents the advertiser 130 fromtransmitting 316 a corresponding user identifier.

If the ad publisher 140 is identified as fraudulent, the online system150 may apply a fraud processing method to the user identifyinginformation received from the ad publisher 140. For example, the onlinesystem 150 blacklists the ad publisher for providing fraudulent useridentifying information or interactions with an advertisement. Theonline system 150 maintains information identifying the ad publisher 140as blacklisted, so the online system 150 does not subsequently provideadvertisements to the ad publisher 140 when the ad publisher 140requests an advertisement. In some implementations, if the value isabove the threshold but does not exceed a blacklist threshold, theonline system 150 stores information indicating that the ad publisher140 is on probation. If an ad publisher 140 is on probation, the adpublisher 140 may be blacklisted if the online system 150 againdetermines that the ad publisher 140 provides fraudulent useridentifying information to the online system 150.

Further, if the ad publisher 140 is determined to have providedfraudulent user identifying information, the online system 150 mayaccount for the fraudulently provided user identifying information whendetermining an amount of compensation to the ad publisher 140 forinteractions with advertisements. For example, if the ad publisher 140is determined to have provided fraudulent user identifying information,the online system 150 withholds payment to the ad publisher 140 forinteractions with advertisements presented by the ad publisher 140. Asanother example, an ad publisher 140 that provided fraudulent useridentifying information receives compensation for only identifiedinteractions associated with user identifying information matching auser identifier received from the advertiser 130. However, if the adpublisher 140 not determined to have provided fraudulent useridentifying information, the online system 150 typically determines thatthe ad publisher 140 receives compensation for interactions identifiedby the ad publisher 140.

SUMMARY

The foregoing description of the embodiments has been presented for thepurpose of illustration; it is not intended to be exhaustive or to limitthe patent rights to the precise forms disclosed. Persons skilled in therelevant art can appreciate that many modifications and variations arepossible in light of the above disclosure.

Some portions of this description describe the embodiments in terms ofalgorithms and symbolic representations of operations on information.These algorithmic descriptions and representations are commonly used bythose skilled in the data processing arts to convey the substance oftheir work effectively to others skilled in the art. These operations,while described functionally, computationally, or logically, areunderstood to be implemented by computer programs or equivalentelectrical circuits, microcode, or the like. Furthermore, it has alsoproven convenient at times, to refer to these arrangements of operationsas modules, without loss of generality. The described operations andtheir associated modules may be embodied in software, firmware,hardware, or any combinations thereof.

Any of the steps, operations, or processes described herein may beperformed or implemented with one or more hardware or software modules,alone or in combination with other devices. In one embodiment, asoftware module is implemented with a computer program productcomprising a computer-readable medium containing computer program code,which can be executed by a computer processor for performing any or allof the steps, operations, or processes described.

Embodiments may also relate to an apparatus for performing theoperations herein. This apparatus may be specially constructed for therequired purposes, and/or it may comprise a general-purpose computingdevice selectively activated or reconfigured by a computer programstored in the computer. Such a computer program may be stored in anon-transitory, tangible computer readable storage medium, or any typeof media suitable for storing electronic instructions, which may becoupled to a computer system bus. Furthermore, any computing systemsreferred to in the specification may include a single processor or maybe architectures employing multiple processor designs for increasedcomputing capability.

Embodiments may also relate to a product that is produced by a computingprocess described herein. Such a product may comprise informationresulting from a computing process, where the information is stored on anon-transitory, tangible computer readable storage medium and mayinclude any embodiment of a computer program product or other datacombination described herein.

Finally, the language used in the specification has been principallyselected for readability and instructional purposes, and it may not havebeen selected to delineate or circumscribe the patent rights. It istherefore intended that the scope of the patent rights be limited not bythis detailed description, but rather by any claims that issue on anapplication based hereon. Accordingly, the disclosure of the embodimentsis intended to be illustrative, but not limiting, of the scope of thepatent rights, which is set forth in the following claims.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method comprising: communicating anadvertisement from an online system to an advertisement publisher forcommunication to one or more client devices for presentation to one ormore users, the advertisement including a link to a landing page;receiving user identifying information from an advertisement publisheridentifying one or more users presented with the advertisement via aclient device and who interacted with the advertisement via the clientdevice; receiving one or more user identifiers from an advertiserassociated with the landing page, a user identifier identifying a userwho interacted with the advertisement and accessed the landing page;determining a value based a number of user identifiers matching receiveduser identifying information; and determining whether the useridentifying information received from the advertisement publisher isfraudulent based at least in part on the value.
 2. The method of claim1, wherein determining the value based a number of user identifiersmatching received user identifying information comprises: determining aratio of a number of users identified by the user identifyinginformation that do not match at least one user identifier to a numberof users identified by the user identifying information that match atleast one user identifier.
 3. The method of claim 2, wherein determiningwhether the user identifying information received from the advertisementpublisher is fraudulent based at least in part on the value comprises:determining the user identifying information received from theadvertisement publisher is fraudulent responsive to the ratio exceedinga threshold value.
 4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:responsive to determining the user identifying information received fromthe advertisement publisher is fraudulent, applying a fraud processingprocess to the user identifying information.
 5. The method of claim 1,further comprising: responsive to determining the user identifyinginformation received from the advertisement publisher is fraudulent,including the ad publisher in a blacklist preventing communication ofone or more subsequent advertisements for presentation with content fromthe ad publisher.
 6. The method of claim 1, wherein the user identifyinginformation includes a user identifier associated with a user of theonline system.
 7. The method of claim 1, wherein the user identifyinginformation includes a device identifier associated with one of theclient devices used by a user of the online system.
 8. The method ofclaim 1, wherein the landing page comprises an application programminginterface.
 9. The method of claim 1, wherein the landing page comprisesa page of content maintained by the advertiser.
 10. The method of claim1, wherein the landing page includes a tracking mechanism, and the oneor more user identifiers are communicated from the advertiser when thetracking mechanism is executed.
 11. The method of claim 1, furthercomprising: determining a payment amount for the advertisement publisherin response to determining the user identifying information receivedfrom the advertisement publisher is not fraudulent.
 12. The method ofclaim 1, wherein the advertisement publisher is a mobile applicationexecuting on each of the one or more client devices.
 13. The method ofclaim 1, wherein at least one of the one or more users is a user of theonline system.
 14. A method comprising: communicating an advertisementfrom an online system to an advertisement publisher for communication toone or more client devices for presentation to one or more users of theclient devices, the advertisement associated with a landing page;receiving information from an advertisement publisher identifyinginteractions with the advertisement via the client devices; receivingone or more user identifiers from an advertiser associated with thelanding page, a user identifier identifying a user of one of the clientdevices who interacted with the advertisement and accessed the landingpage; determining a value based on the interactions identified by theinformation received from the advertisement publisher and the one ormore user identifiers received from the advertiser; and determiningwhether the information received from the advertisement publisher isfraudulent based at least in part on the value.
 15. The method of claim14, wherein the information received from the advertisement publisherincludes user identifying information identifying one or more users ofthe client device presented with the advertisement and who interactedwith the advertisement via the client devices.
 16. The method of claim15, wherein determining whether the information received from theadvertisement publisher is fraudulent based at least in part on thecomparison of the information received from the advertisement publisherand the information received from the advertiser comprises: determininga number of users of the client devices identified in the informationreceived from the advertisement publisher and also identified in theinformation received from the advertiser; determining an additionalnumber of users of the client devices identified in the informationreceived from the advertisement publisher and not identified in theinformation received from the advertiser; determining a value based atleast in part on the number of users and the additional number of users;and determining whether the information received from the advertisementpublisher is fraudulent based at least in part on the value.
 17. Themethod of claim 16, wherein the value comprises a ratio of theadditional number of users to the number of users.
 18. The method ofclaim 17, determining whether the information received from theadvertisement publisher is fraudulent based at least in part on thevalue comprises: determining the information received from theadvertisement publisher is fraudulent responsive to the ratio exceedinga threshold value.
 19. The method of claim 14, further comprising:responsive to determining the information received from theadvertisement publisher is fraudulent, applying a fraud processingmethod to the information received from the advertisement publisher. 20.The method of claim 14, further comprising: responsive to determiningthe information received from the advertisement publisher is fraudulent,including the advertisement publisher in a blacklist preventingcommunication of one or more subsequent advertisements for presentationwith content from the advertisement publisher.
 21. The method of claim14, wherein the advertisement publisher is a mobile applicationexecuting on each of the one or more client devices.
 22. A computerprogram product comprising a computer-readable storage medium havinginstructions encoded thereon that, when executed by a processor, causethe processor to: communicate an advertisement from an online system toan advertisement publisher for communication to one or more clientdevices for presentation to one or more users of the client devices, theadvertisement associated with a landing page; receive user identifyinginformation from an advertisement publisher identifying one or moreusers of the client devices presented with the advertisement and whointeracted with the advertisement via the client devices; receive one ormore user identifiers from an advertiser associated with the landingpage, a user identifier identifying a user of one of the client deviceswho interacted with the advertisement and accessed the landing page;determine a value based a number of user identifiers matching receiveduser identifying information; and determine whether the user identifyinginformation received from the advertisement publisher is fraudulentbased at least in part on the value.
 23. The computer program product ofclaim 22, wherein the user identifying information includes a useridentifier associated with a user of the online system.
 24. The computerprogram product of claim 22, wherein the user identifying informationincludes a device identifier associated with one of the client devicesused by a user of the online system.
 25. The computer program product ofclaim 22, wherein determine whether the information received from theadvertisement publisher is fraudulent based at least in part on thecomparison of the information received from the advertisement publisherand the information received from the advertiser comprises: determine anumber of users of the client devices identified in the informationreceived from the advertisement publisher and also identified in theinformation received from the advertiser; determine an additional numberof users of the client devices identified in the information receivedfrom the advertisement publisher and not identified in the informationreceived from the advertiser; determine a value based at least in parton the number of users and the additional number of users; and determinewhether the information received from the advertisement publisher isfraudulent based at least in part on the value.